You want to run Google Ads. The budget is there, the decision too.
But nobody on the team has ever set up a campaign, and nobody has time to learn it.
That is the starting point of most SMEs in Bern who contact us.
And it is completely normal. Google Ads is a craft, not a button.
In this article you read what an agency concretely takes over, what still stays with you, how the first month runs and how to recognise a good agency.
No jargon, with an example from our own work.
Why Google Ads without management burns money fast
Google Ads is easy to start and hard to do well.
The account is open in ten minutes. Then the work nobody sees begins.
An example:
A plumbing business in Bern starts a campaign on the keyword “plumber”.
The ad also shows for “plumber apprenticeship”, “plumber training” and “plumber Zurich”.
Every one of those clicks costs money. None brings a job.
Another example:
A practice runs ads that lead to the home page.
It says “Welcome”, the phone number is in the footer, the form has nine fields.
The clicks come, the enquiries do not. After two months the verdict is: “Google Ads doesn’t work for us.”
Neither is a Google problem. They are craft errors: missing negative keywords, no landing page, no conversion tracking.
That is exactly the work an agency takes over.
What a Google Ads agency concretely takes over
A good agency does not deliver “running ads”. It delivers a system that brings enquiries and can be measured.
This is part of it:
- Setting the goal and the metric: calls, forms, appointment bookings or sales, and what an enquiry may cost.
- Building the account and structure: campaigns per service, ad groups per topic, region limited to Bern and the surrounding area.
- Researching and excluding keywords: finding the terms your customers use and excluding the expensive wrong clicks (“apprenticeship”, “free”, “Zurich”) from day one.
- Writing ads: several variants per topic, with your offer, your location and a clear next step.
- Building or adapting landing pages: one page per campaign that shows exactly what the ad promises, with phone number and a short form at the top.
- Setting up conversion tracking: every call and every form is counted. Without it, every evaluation is guesswork.
- Managing the budget: adjusting bids, daily budgets and schedules continuously; moving money to where enquiries come from.
- Reporting: monthly, in numbers you understand: enquiries, cost per enquiry, what was changed and what comes next.
One point deserves explanation: Google rates every ad with a Quality Score made of three parts: expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.
The better these three fit together, the less you pay per click.
That is why the ad and the landing page belong in the same hands.
What still stays with you
An agency can take a lot off your plate, but not everything. Three things stay with you:
Answering the enquiries.
Whoever enquires through an ad is comparing right now. An answer the next day is often too late.
Settle before the start who takes calls and who answers forms within a few hours.
The offer.
No campaign rescues an offer nobody wants or a price nobody understands.
The agency needs from you: what do you offer, for whom, what sets you apart, and what should the person do next?
The decisions.
How much budget per month, which service first, when to stop or increase.
The agency prepares the decision with numbers. You have to make it.
How the start runs: a typical first month
So you know what to expect, here is the process as we run it with SMEs in Bern.
| Week | What happens | What we need from you |
| 1 | Kickoff: goals, services, region, budget. Access to the website and any existing account. Tracking concept. | One hour of time, access details, your three most important services |
| 2 | Account structure, keyword lists, negative keywords, ad copy, landing page(s), conversion tracking. | Approval of the copy and the landing page |
| 3 | Campaigns live with a deliberately small budget. Daily check of the search terms. | Feedback: which enquiries came in, which were usable? |
| 4 | First evaluation: cost per enquiry, wrong clicks, adjustments. Decision on the budget from month two. | Half an hour for the report |
After the first month you know roughly what an enquiry costs in your industry in Bern.
That is the number all further decisions are built on.
An example from our work
For Doka France, a manufacturer in the construction industry, we set up and managed a Google Ads campaign.
The result: a ROAS of 271 percent. For every franc spent, 2.71 francs of revenue came back.
The details are in our advertising portfolio.
What made the difference was no secret setting.
It was the combination: a clear goal, tight keyword lists, landing pages per offer and tracking that attributes every enquiry to the right keyword.
Exactly the craft from the list above.
How to recognise a good Google Ads agency in Bern
Check these points before the first conversation. They say more than any list of references.
- The account belongs to you. The campaigns run in your Google Ads account. If you part ways, data and history stay with you.
- Enquiries, not clicks. The report shows calls and forms, not just impressions and click-through rates.
- Separate costs. What goes to Google and what the management costs are listed separately in the proposal.
- No lock-in. A three-month start is fair; a twelve-month minimum term before the first result is not.
- The landing page is a topic. An agency that only talks about ads and never about your website leaves half the result on the table.
- Honest expectations. “In four weeks we know what an enquiry costs” is honest. “Guaranteed first place” is not.
At Mondi Agency, Google Ads runs under performance marketing, together with Meta and LinkedIn Ads.
If the landing page is missing, our web team builds it in the same project.
And if you want one contact for all channels, there is the part-time marketing manager.
Google Ads, SEO or both?
Google Ads brings enquiries from the first week, as long as budget flows.
SEO brings them after months, but without click costs.
For most SMEs in Bern the answer is: ads for the start and for tests, SEO built up in parallel.
Which channel fits when is in our comparison SEO or Google Ads.
If your website is barely found on Google today, this guide to the causes helps you first.
And whether a specialist or a full-service agency makes more sense for it is settled in our comparison of agency types.
Through the marketing agency in Bern page you find the way to a first conversation. There we settle whether Google Ads is the right first step for your offer.
